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Massive Solar Plant In the Sahara Could Help Keep the EU Powered (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: In the global race to ditch fossil fuel reliance for more renewable energy sources, Europe is already making some impressive strides. That is likely to ramp up considerably thanks to a new European Union plan to build a large solar plant in the Sahara desert -- with the ability to generate enough power to keep much of Europe juiced up. In all, the enormous solar farm aims to produce 4.5 gigawatts of power, which can then be transmitted across the Mediterranean from Tunisia to mainland Europe. TuNur's proposed solar farm utilizes an enormous quantity of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a central collector, which uses molten salt to store the energy as heat. Three HVDC submarine cables will then transport the power to Europe. The first cable will link Tunisia and Malta, the second will link Tunisia to central Italy, and a third will link Tunisia to the south of France. "We are opening a new energy corridor to allow Europe to import cheap solar power from the Sahara on a massive scale," Daniel Rich, Chief Operating Officer of TuNur, the company behind the project, told Digital Trends. "This will help Europe meet its Paris Climate Agreement emissions reduction commitments quickly and cost effectively. It also will give a much-needed boost to the Tunisia economy through significant investment into the country, creation of thousands of jobs, new tax revenues, and the establishment of a new solar industry that can help support their future domestic demand."
You have to start somewhere
I hope that Africa create a lot of energy ... for africans.
Yeah... europeans could enjoy that massive energy though lines, but it's better that we raise african life quality instead to move the wealth to Europe and later have a lot of african migration into Europe.
I live in Vietnam and we've had our internet access severely crippled seven (eight, nine?) times in the last few years because the submarine cables connecting the country to the rest of the world have been mysteriously severed.
I've looked at the map and it seems that every time, the approximate place where the cables (I believe all three of the ones that currently connect Vietnam) have been cut has been in a place that it would only affect Vietnam. For example the Asian American Gateway cable connects the U.S. with a bunch of nations here but I think it was only in the spur that connects Vietnam that was cut.
Of course it could be due to natural causes; undersea disturbances, fishermen dredging up fiber optic cables for their copper cladding (about a decade ago that was the reason!), even sharks. But since the government made damaging these cables a crime against the "national infrastructure" (which may be a capital offense) and since Vietnam, unlike some of its neighbors, is not a particularly active seismic zone, I'm not so sure. Of course one major power would have the will and ability to sever these cables without Vietnam being able to do anything (and maybe not being able to catch them doing it): China. What better way to cripple your up and coming neighbor's economy while getting away with complete deniability. (Fortunately, not all the cables were cut at the same time but that could be because it was only meant as a warning).
I believe that once, in the 50s or 60s, the then Soviet Union tried to cut some of the transatlantic cables connecting the U.S. with Europe. I understand that the U.S. quickly determined that the cables were not failing due to natural causes and since there was only one other country with the means to do so, quickly told the Soviets to stop or it would be WAR. (The U.S. was also developing means of tracking all sorts of submarine activity so maybe they didn't have to rely on deduction). Unfortunately, the Vietnamese cannot absolutely positively pin it on the Chinese (other powers may be playing some sneaky dirty games) and anyway they don't have nukes (or a decent military) to push back 1.3 billion people! (They also don't have any kind of decent underwater surveillance capabilities in contrast to the sonar/intelligence net the Chinese are intending to deploy throughout the entire South China sea.)
So, as much as I'd like to see a jobs program to try to (vainly?) employ the exploding numbers of millions (hundreds of millions? Soon billions?) of under/unemployed Africans to reduce Europe's carbon footprint, I don't think the governments involved would take the risk of being so reliant on three cables that could be instantly cut. Better would be to export the power to sub-saharan Africa to drive their economies with cheap, zero-C power.
If you had a clue about geography (or just checked a map) you may have noticed that the cable would pass entirely in Tunisia, closer to the border with Algeria than with Libya. Both Tunisia and Algeria are relatively politically stable, although Algeria is not very democratic.
Anyway, it is possible that the project will go nowhere, but I'm pretty sure that the engineers and politicians involved will take due care to read all this Slashdot discussion and take in account your valuable expertise on the subject, they may even send you some money for the invaluable insight you have provided!
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
An extremely good, and free, e-book on climate change recommended this solution in 2008. The author, David MacKay, was the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (UK).
Here's the book - I thoroughly recommend it: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air.
It attempts a quantative approach to determining whether particular alternative sources of energy are useful and sustainable or not. It's a short read, politics free (neither "bah, it's all a hoax!" nor "do this immediately or DIE!") and is definitely worth the time of anyone interested in the subject.
Honestly, it would likely become a lot more stable if the world suddenly found a serious self-interest in making it so.
You're right. But the current situation is that much of Europe's energy is supplied by Russia, which, in the current geopolitical climate, is even worse for energy security because it gives the Kremlin the power to strongarm the Union by threatening to raise prices or close the gas flow entirely.
If only there was a mineral of some sort in the ground that could be used to generate energy via nuclear fission that was safer per kilowatt than other energy production sources,and if only someone had devised ways of storing the radioactive waste safely...
But because radiation is scary to people who do not understand the difference between modern reactors and Chernobyl/Fukushima, my fellow Europeans seem somehow terrified by it, even though countries like France have been using it to generate over a third of all their energy for long.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying nuclear is the perfect solution. It's not. But it's a whole lot better for energy security and for the climate than continuing to use coal, oil and natural gas while we try to figure out cleaner solutions that work even in less sunny areas.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
So hell!
Lets make our power dependent on one huge collection of transmission lines that can be taken down with one well placed bomb.
And lets place that in one of the most war torn regions in the world.
That will work out just great.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It provides significant power during times of peak demand. And it's the first one.
Anyway, if we are willing to invest tens of billions of Euros in single nuclear plants that generate less than half that much, it seems like it's pretty "significant".
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Really, you don't think half a billion dollars in annual revenue (by my rough estimation of how much Tunisia stands to earn, with commercial rates and a realistic capacity factor and profit margin) would have an impact on the quality of living there?
Tunisia specifically modified their energy law in 2015 to allow projects like this. Tunisia doesn't have some scarcity of desert land, it has a scarcity of income.
He's really very... gentle... and fuzzy. We're becoming fast friends.